A Square Deal

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It is easy to forget how shocking the arrival of Cubism was. When Matisse set eyes on Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon — five naked women in a brothel, their bodies fractured into a kaleidoscope of novel planes, as if put together from jigsaw pieces that someone lacked the patience to assemble correctly — he hooted with laughter. The painter André Derain took one look and said: “This can only end in suicide. One day, Picasso will be found hanging behind the ‘Demoiselles’.” Even Jacqueline Roque, Picasso’s second wife, quipped: “If my husband ever met a woman on the street who looked like